


Never Yours

by RoseofEden



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon compliant for the most part, F/M, Pining, wash centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 10:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19810708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseofEden/pseuds/RoseofEden
Summary: Long-winded Wash centric pining, because what is Carwash without senseless pining?





	Never Yours

**Author's Note:**

> Long-winded Wash centric pining, because what is Carwash without senseless pining?

She’s not yours,

but the way her hand felt in your own was agreeable.

They fit nearly as well as your gun did to her temple, as the words “protecting my friends” did to your tongue.

You were hesitant to follow after her, you knew all too well chasing ghosts drove a person mad.

But they convinced you.

And her hand in yours,

your gun in her palm,

_it felt right._

But then she left, and though you weren’t surprised, what you did feel was disappointed.

Disappointed that she left without so much as a goodbye.

But you understood, didn’t you?

You knew her mother. How could you not, when her name still echoed in your skull when no one else was around to hear? 

She didn’t know the comfort a goodbye carried, 

she was too preoccupied looking for something to fill the cavern in her chest, to settle the guilt that plagued her sleep.

And you understood that most of all. Because you felt it too.

So you didn’t hold it against her when she returned as quickly as she left.

You didn’t mind her presence at your side, her weight pressed against your back in battle.

You work well together, like two cogs that clicked into place.

Your friends became her’s, and you think she understands why you held the gun to her head.

You’d like to think that, given the circumstances, she’d do the same.

That she’d do it for you, because you’d do it for her in a heartbeat.

And you do.

Over, 

and over,

and over again, until the war’s won.

You didn’t question her when she fell into your arms. The sob that errupted from her chest nearly knocked you off your feet, a dam once strong now overflowing.

He was gone, and you both knew somewhere deeper than words that it was for good this time.

Iris was bittersweet at first.

Melancholic was a term better than others to describe it. But she was, with risk of saying it, softer. As if her edges had been worn down like a stone at the bottom of a riverbed.

A riverbed where the undercurrent was swifter than the still surface.

There was a storm inside her, lighting in her eyes and thunder in her voice. A sorrow that cut like a knife deeper than her previous anger had.

Give her time.

Let her grieve.

You gave her time, when you sat across from eachother, silence filling the space in between. Your quiet eyes would search her as she pretended not to notice, her own eyes trained on the bottle in her hand.

You had hoped it would be enough to ease her, to bring about vulnerability with that softness.

And you let her grieve, when the storm inside seethed out in a crash against you. Her tears hurt you nearly as much as the way her voice cracked when she spoke the name Church.

You knew she meant more than just the A.I.

“We’re the only ones left.”

It took a while for those words to sink in.

Approximately two weeks, when her hand found your own after enough beer to excuse it and not enough to forget it.

You could never forget the way her careful fingers felt in your own.

Not when her eyes met yours from the makeshift stage, shrill voice not nearly as pleasant as the laughter in between verses, but still endearing nonetheless.

Not when you watched cheesy action movies, Reds and blues alike huddled on the sofa between blankets, the warm weight of her shoulder pressed into your chest.

Certainly not when her worn voice requested a name from what felt like a lifetime before you, a question existing in the space between day and night. The sound felt foreign to your tongue as you gifted it to her.

You could have lived endlessly in the halcyon of her and the moon.

And then they came.

Andrews and Jonez.

She wanted to go, to find the others. To reclaim a part of herself that you both silently promised to leave behind.

Perhaps some part deep within you had hoped it would stay in the past.

You found comfort in the you and me,

her and you.

And perhaps a part deeper than that, a part in the very pit of your chest indulged in the necessity of her side against yours.

But if there was one thing that was certain, it was that you didn’t have any hesitations to follow her this time around.

Those hesitations were lost to a time before her hand found yours. Before you knew the unsteady rise and fall of her chest against your own, fighting for any shrivel of rest before the sun pulled you away from each other.

Now, being at her side came as natural as breathing. Where you had once felt indifference— resentment would be just as befitting a word— you now held affection, _understanding_.

And you do understand, when her fists tremble at her sides at the sight of a photograph from a time before you understood her at all.

Her face is a river, contorting from anger to sorrow, and you know it to be the image of grief.

She confides in you, and you encourage her, because that is what you are now. The careful stress she places on the name you gifted her is an attestation of it.

There had been a time she would never had spilled her heart’s contents on your ears so willingly, but here she is.

And here are you, where some hadn’t been so lucky to be. She speaks of him fondly, eyes tracing the curve of a lighter in her palm. You see a light in her eyes, flickering and wilting as she attempts to let go.

You stop her.

_“You don’t have to destroy the past to have a future.”_

Those are the words you tell her as your hand finds it’s place in her own. There’s an uncertainty in her grip, a concern that you hope is soothed by the hope in your own.

She’s not yours.

And you know she won’t be yours after this, and she certainly wasn’t before.

She’s not yours,

and you’re not hers,

but your hand will always be open for her to take whenever she may need it, and her back will always be pressed to your’s in the crossfire of battle.

You are partners, for better or for worse,

and for you,

_that is enough._


End file.
